Don't redraw US House districts now, GOP incumbents in NC ask

U.S. Reps. PatrickMcHenry, left, and Mark Meadows(Photo: Courtesy U.S. House)

It would be unfair to candidates to force the state General Assembly to redraw North Carolina’s congressional district boundaries at this point in the election cycle, the state’s 10 Republican members of the U.S. House are telling the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 10 on Tuesday asked the court to delay implementation of a Jan. 9 U.S. District Court decision that found the district map is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and ordered the legislature to draw a new one by the end of the month.

The Republican congressmen’s wish was fulfilled on Thursday, at least for the near future.

The Supreme Court ruled that the lower court decision will not go into effect for now, granting a request made by the Republican leaders of the state legislature. That dramatically increases the chances that the 2018 U.S. House races will be held using existing district lines.

The 10 Republican incumbents, which include 10th District U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-Lincoln, and 11th District U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Buncombe, say in a court filing that they and other candidates “have long been campaigning in anticipation of the 2018 election.”

New lines would force the incumbents “to devote considerable resources to reaching different voters, campaigning in different districts, and fundraising from different areas,” than they have been already, their legal motion says. They ask that lines remain the same until the Supreme Court decides whether to uphold the Jan. 9 ruling.

Filing in U.S. House races in North Carolina is set to run Feb. 12-28, with primaries scheduled for May 8 and the general election Nov. 6. The courts could change that schedule, however.

If upheld by the Supreme Court, the Jan. 9 decision would dramatically shift the legal landscape governing redistricting. Courts have been reluctant to overturn congressional district lines because they disadvantage a particular political party.

The Jan. 9 decision says North Carolina’s lines were drawn with the clear intention of helping Republicans beat Democrats and endorses several ways to measure the partisan nature of the district lines.

The Republican incumbents are not defendants in the case, but filed a “friend of the court” brief stating their legal opinion. The brief does not take a position on whether the Jan. 9 decision was correct. Instead, it focuses on the harm it says would befall the 10 incumbents if the decision is implemented right away.

It says each of the 10 have notified the federal government they are running in 2018, have collectively raised more than $6.5 million for their campaigns and have “invested substantial time, effort and/or money” in their re-election bids.

If no delay is granted, that “will disproportionately disadvantage and harm candidates who do not currently possess many resources while advantaging candidates who have amassed large campaign war-chests,” the motion says.

McHenry’s campaign committee had $1.8 million in the bank as of Sept. 30 and Meadows’ nearly $293,000, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Changes to district lines could reduce Republicans’ chances of getting re-elected. Democrats won only three of North Carolina’s 13 U.S. House seats in 2016 despite getting 46.6 percent of votes cast in the races.

The North Carolina gerrymandering case has also drawn attention from Republican officials in other states.

The Republican head of the Pennsylvania state Senate on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to delay implementation of the North Carolina ruling, saying multiple gerrymandering cases being heard in the courts would otherwise cause confusion until the Supreme Court decides the North Carolina case.

Republican attorneys general in Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina and Texas also on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to leave current boundaries in place in North Carolina.

Their brief says the Jan. 9 ruling is incorrect.

“Fundamentally, partisan gerrymandering is the undeniable and historically permitted consequence of entrusting reapportionment to an inherently political body: state legislators,” it reads. If voters don’t like the lines legislators draw, their remedy is to vote them out of office, it says.

It is unclear when the Supreme Court might rule on the underlying issues in the North Carolina case. The court heard oral arguments in October on a similar case from Wisconsin and is expected to rule on it by the end of June.

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